SEPULVEDA, Calif.--From a first-floor suite in the two-story yellow and brown building on Woodley Ave. here, Visiting Professor of Business Administration Marc J. Epstein created a small empire of businesses.

Records obtained through the California Secretary of State show the empire included 73 business in California alone, operating under names ranging from Alameda-Washington Properties to Forman Apartments.

In the late 1980s, however, the empire built in the earthquake country of the San Fernando Valley was shaken by management decisions and a sagging real estate market. Four years ago, several of Epstein's businesses crumbled.

"When the real estate market went into the tank, the companies couldn't repay [their] loans," Los Angeles attorney Richard Burdge said in an interview last year.

The plushy carpeted suite at 8718 Woodley Ave. is vacant now. The old occupant is elsewhere employed--teaching ethics at the Harvard Business School.

Epstein and his sometimes business partner, Beverly Hills attorney Harold Klein, did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story. But he insisted in interviews last spring that his role in the companies run out of Sepulveda was minimal.

He said he merely lent his name to friends for various loans and investments. Epstein also said he had little to do with the financial demise of the companies.

Harvard launched a review of Epstein after the University was named in a suit last spring by California-based Mitsui Manufacturers Bank, which was trying to recoup $2.7 million that Epstein owed them. As a result of that review, University officials have said they accept Epstein's explanations.

"He tried to do something good for some people so they wouldn't lose money," Dickinson Professor of Accounting Robert S. Kaplan said after the review was completed. "There was a partnership in which he was involved."

But Epstein was far more involved spring, the professor himself ran numerousbusinesses from his office here.

In addition, Business School Officials werewrong when they indicated last spring that theMitsui loan was the only one Epstein did not payon time. Epstein defaulted on loans worth millionsof dollars to at least six different banks,according to Los Angeles County court documents.

In fact, according to George Chaves, who runsthe insurance company next door to Epstein'ssuite, the professor was more than just a tenantof the yellow and brown building on Woodley Ave.He owned it.

Chaves, other entrepreneurs and courtrecords do not just deflate Epstein's claims thathe was little more than bystander in the 73California businesses and partnerships he ran.They also paint a less than flattering picture ofhow Epstein ran his businesses, many of which arelisted as "suspended" by the California Secretaryof State's office.

In dozens of civil suits filed against Epsteinin Los Angeles County courts over the past decade,plaintiffs claim the professor either inisledthem, failed to pay them or defrauded themoutright.

Harvard first learned about Epstein's financialpast last year when Mitsui Manufactures Bank filedsuit in Middlesex County court in an attempt tocollect money directly from the professor'spaycheck in order to repay loans.

Bank officials claimed that Epstein, who haddefaulted on a $1.5 million loan in 1989, owed$2.7 million and had departed from Californiawithout leaving the bank a forwarding address.After three years, they tracked him down atHarvard.